Before states, I decided to use the regional stats to potentially seed teams at states. I came up with the following options.

SeedingSeeding Version 1: Average Points Alphabet + (Average Team Category*2) Competition varies between regionals so I wanted to try to use the stats I believed are most fair. From the category rounds, I picked average points per round on team questions (no steals/toss-ups) multiplied by two (so the point total equals the alphabet round amount). I then added that number to the average points per alphabet round. Seeding Version 2: Average Alphabet + (Average Team Category*2) + (Average Final Round Pts/2)Although competition varies between regions, toss-ups are a major part of the game. I thought this may be a way to incorporate them into the seeding procedure without them being to overpowering.

Regional Winner Advantage?I did each bracket two ways. One where Regional winners were seeded 1-6 and runner-ups were seeded 7-12. The other was seeding teams based on the average numbers and not caring who won regionals.

Penalty I then wanted to give teams an incentive to play all rounds at regionals. If a team left regionals early, I averaged a zero into their score. For example, School A left regionals early. Say they scored 116 in the alphabet round and 86 total on team questions.

(Category Pts*2)+ Alphabet Points/ Rounds Played(172+116 )/ 6 = 48.0

Now because School A left regionals early I divided their (Category Pts*2)+ Alphabet Points) by 7 instead of 6. This results in the team being penalized with a lower seed at states.

(172+116)/7 = 41.14

ExamplesAttached below are examples of all the variations on the items detailed above. I used the scoresheets from regionals to create these brackets. I am open to suggestions (that is why I posted it here). Let me know your thoughts! I just believe there has to be a better way to do it.

I put snaked in writing but the brackets I made were snaked (with an error) I corrected them for this post. The snaked part is also totally negotiable to me. I'm just throwing ideas out here and interested what people have to add to the discussion.

As of right now at least, I prefer: no penalty, regional winners not having an advantage, no final round points being involved

No Penalty - At first glance, I thought I would come down on the other side of this but then after some thought realized the teams it hurts most are the teams that have a mis-seeded team in their bracket, not that particular team that left early. So rather than penalizing the team in question, we end up making higher seeded teams have to play a much better team in a slot they should be playing someone not as strong.

Regional Winners not having an advantage - The Regional format can still ensure that two teams get in from each region but to automatically give them a top 6 seed in my opinion should not happen. When two of the top teams are from the same region, it can vastly swing the bracketing to have the #7 seed possibly be the second or third best team in the tournament and would lead to the 2/3/6/7/10/11 bracket always being stronger in my opinion.

No final round points being involved - Of the 3 choices to be made, this is by far the one I don't feel as black and white about and could definitely be convinced otherwise. Right now, I settled on not having them involved because the level of competition does vary wildly, and it could easily be affected by having more games against lesser competition by being the team that gets to drop down to the consolation, etc. It just seems to me that going with this leaves no room for anyone to have any complaints because everything is on the team in question with no bias toward the opponent they are playing whatsoever.

No Penalty - At first glance, I thought I would come down on the other side of this but then after some thought realized the teams it hurts most are the teams that have a mis-seeded team in their bracket, not that particular team that left early. So rather than penalizing the team in question, we end up making higher seeded teams have to play a much better team in a slot they should be playing someone not as strong.

Josh, this is great work and great stuff. I'm going to divide this post into two subsections: one that explains my choice for your pool, and the other that addresses the status quo.

I. I will not lie, it took me probably about a half hour-to-an-hour to mill over the two choices I narrowed down to. I narrowed down to choice #4(Alphabet +(Team Questions Pts.*2) Regional winners NOT favored in seeding, NO penalty for teams that leave early) and choice #8 ((Final Round/2) +Alphabet +(Team Questions Pts.*2) Regional winners NOT favored in seeding, NO penalty for teams that leave early.).

Before I go any further, I voted for #8; however, I could have been just as satisfied with #4 as well. I simply think that the more criteria that is applied to examine a team's resume for seeding purposes, then the seeding will be more informed and, hopefully, will draw a better distinction of who should belong where in the preliminary brackets.

I think that the point of penalizing teams for leaving early just gives them no incentive to come out and play at Regionals if the OAC doesn't provide for the fact they may have a time conflict (this was the case with Lakewood) or they are at a Regional that runs very slow (this was not the case with Lakewood.)

There's no one from Lakewood that posts on this board (I don't believe...), but my understanding was a good chunk of their team was also participating in another school activity later that night. I entirely get the point behind why we'd want to create mechanisms of incentive to play/determent from not playing, but really I think not penalizing teams for leaving early is the path of least resistance here that also is the path of "making sure these schools will still want to come back and play next year." Had a seeding procedure, such as penalizing teams for leaving early, for states' purposes been implemented before this year's competition, then I would suggest that Lakewood probably wouldn't have opted to come all the way into Lancaster (to play Regionals) if the end result meant they were going to be seeded at #10 or #11 out of 12 (if they didn't plan on playing the Regional through to the end, then this was going to be what happened. You can't win the regional if you don't play the games necessary.) Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm led to believe that the drive from Cuyahoga County to Lancaster, round-trip, coupled with the obvious time expenses, and the fact that they had a schedule conflict they were going to be cutting close, are all too great of liabilities to take on just to be assigned a seed that effectively kills any state title hopes (and that's assuming they were going to make it to the finals and clinch a state bid.) ***N.B.*** - why not just put something in place that the regional runner-up has to take a seed behind the regional champion from their same region in cases of leaving early? (e.g. Lakewood would have to take a seed that is further away from #1 than Fisher's.)

I don't really think it's that great of a travesty if a team decides to duck the final games because of time constraints.

At first, I really thought giving the regional champion priority in seeding was a good idea, because I am reminded of 2014 when St. Charles, who won the SE Regional against us in arguably one of the closest, most entertaining and most down-to-the-wire finals that regional has ever seen, drew Northmont, while we drew Sidney. Sidney that year was a very fine team, by all accounts. However, I think everyone on this board agrees that it had to have sucked for St. Charles that winning their regional meant (because, of course, it was left up to chance because of the draw) they got Northmont. I am reminded of literally just this past Saturday where the 1/20 chance of drawing both Copley and Beavercreek, from Fisher's perspective, actually happened and the three best teams by Josh's statistical measures were in the same morning bracket (yes, I realize Kevin for Copley wasn't there. Had he been there, it's entirely possible the state finals could've looked different in some way, all because of how the draw played out.) BUT THEN... I am reminded of the fact that, if there is seeding, then none of these scenarios will ever happen again because quantitative statistics literally tell us who the best teams are and how they should be seeded. Additionally, and no disrespect to a team such as Findlay, but they were not better than Lakewood, and years of data in the form of scores at Regionals and States suggests that the NW Regional isn't as strong traditionally as say, the North Coast, so it seems to be that the seeding intentions of a bracket are going to be rinsed away when, say, the 3rd best team in the state (who finished second at Regionals to the 1st best team in the state) is actually seeded 7th while a team that, lets just say probably isn't in the top six of the state, is seeded ahead of #7.

Which segues into my next point...

II. The Status Quo

Please, please, please... I beg of you who sit on the Committee: no matter your views on the nuances of seeding (unless, I suppose, you don't think States should be seeded), please just agree to have the 'random draw' make like the recognition rule and rid it from our beautiful state for once and for all. I played at OAC States three times in my life, and I've read for it twice (and hope to read more in the future.) Every year that I have been there, and certainly in talking to various members of the community in the week that leads up to OAC States, there is always the overarching concern that the “Bracket of Death” scenario will happen. It happened, with a 1 in 20 chance (five percent), this year. Coaches, while always confident in their team's ability, always bite their fingernails in fear and trembling as the lots are cast and as the brackets fill; players, already anxious about it being state finals and being uncertain if they'll get another shot at it the next year, also take notice of the fact that the draw largely determines the course of the day for not just their teams, but the teams around them. The regions, while created on the basis of equal opportunity, do not create equal caliber competition at states, and I think with the increase of data over the years and a better understanding of how other regions are top-to-bottom in terms of caliber, it is only right that the State Finals have a schedule drafted that is seeded, using empirical evidence, as opposed to just drawn by chance.

State finals, no matter how much players and coaches try to downplay the fact, are always a time where the emotions can run high. Let's just face facts: the teams that make it there want to win a title, they aren't just treating it like some typical Saturday event. I will candidly say that, had we drawn into a bracket of death scenario on the basis of the draw my senior year, I would've been upset at the system. While I felt relieved to know we dodged Northmont that year, at the same time, I felt some ambivalence: I had great respect for Zel Demere, Tyler McMaken, their teammates, and Coach Connor (who I now know as 'Alex'.) We played each other in the regional finals of the Southeast region twice in Portsmouth, and once in Lancaster (they won the series 2-1.) We played each other on In the Know, we played each other countless times at countless events over the years. As I mentioned earlier, we lost the SE Regional to them in 2014 in what was a great contest. I knew one of us had to draw Northmont, and I was firmly convinced we were going to (60% chance; the bracket of death scenario that year could have either been Northmont, Fisher, and Copley or Northmont, St. Charles, and Copley.) Both brackets of death were avoided, and we didn't draw Northmont (even though we probably should have, had the seeding measures been put in place back then. We got Sidney and Copley instead.) As happy as I was that we missed Northmont, I knew that the road for our friendly Diocesan rivals just got a lot harder through no fault of their own, and that kind of felt crappy back then, and it still feels bad to think about it today.

Had Copley been at full strength last Saturday, someone would have been the odd man out. Maybe the state champion or state runner-up wouldn't have been had Copley, who was the #2 or #3 team based on Josh's statistical measures, been playing at full strength. The only sure way to ensure the brackets are as fair and equal as possible is to face facts and recognize that regional finishes (a 1 or a 2) do not serve as great of an indicator as to a team's strength as the numbers do.

There's no one from Lakewood that posts on this board (I don't believe...), but my understanding was a good chunk of their team was also participating in another school activity later that night.

I was aware of this. I know some people were upset with them and others leaving in the past. I was just throwing things out there. No disrespect to them.

Get Lynned wrote:

Had Copley been at full strength last Saturday, someone would have been the odd man out. Maybe the state champion or state runner-up wouldn't have been had Copley, who was the #2 or #3 team based on Josh's statistical measures, been playing at full strength.

Those stats from regionals were without Kevin as well. I don't think it would have made a difference. Beavercreek, Fisher, Solon and Lakewood deserve all the credit for taking care of business. Especially Fisher. They played phenomenal against us.

The one sticking point for me is the idea of "regional protection." If we go to purely straight seeding, then in several of the scenarios that Josh created, teams play their regional counterpart in State pool play. That doesn't bother me from a pure competitive standpoint, but it will mean that teams will not face a team from all the other regions. That may not matter to people, but it seems like something to think about.

The other aspect of this is a kind of double jeopardy. If you're paired with your regional countepart, you've already faced them 1-3 times at regionals, and you could argue that you start the pool with a likely win/loss depending on how that matchup ended up.

1. There should not be a penalty for teams that leave early for the reasons mentioned above.2. Regional Champs should be favored because you don't want to create a scenario where a regional champ is seeded lower than the team they beat because of the "stats".3. Final round stats should not be included because of uneven competition and more importantly, you don't want to create a situation where teams are "running up the score" on lesser teams with seeding in mind. I think there are numerous occasions on the regional level where teams can/do give lesser experienced players a chance to play in the final round to gain experience and not run up the score. I would hate to see that kind of sportsmanship disappear because points are needed for seeding.

2. Regional Champs should be favored because you don't want to create a scenario where a regional champ is seeded lower than the team they beat because of the "stats".

I would argue (I think at least) with any model, it would be very hard for this to ever happen. If you were better in these statistics, you would be winning the games to win the Region. Josh has the numbers and is working on running them and can probably provide some hard statistics on this eventually.

I think the off chance that things are very close and one team ends up seeded fourth instead of third (despite having won the region but having slightly off kilter stats) is much less egregious than the sixth seeded team being the eleventh best team there, while the seventh seeded team is the second best there.

You are likely correct as long as the lightning round is not included, but I still don't think it should be possible for a team to be seeded behind a team they beat in Regionals. Maybe an adjustment can be made for that scenario.

You are likely correct as long as the lightning round is not included, but I still don't think it should be possible for a team to be seeded behind a team they beat in Regionals. Maybe an adjustment can be made for that scenario.

That is a great point! Could definitely put in some clause that the second team out of a Regional can only be ranked as high as the next seed after the first team from their region. Love that idea Tim!

I prefer seeding version #1 (where final round scores are not included) over seeding version #2 (where final round scores are included) for the reasons noted by Joe.

With regards to regional winner advantage, I hate the idea of regional winners being seeded 1-6 and regional runners-up being seeded 7-12, due to the large disparity in skill level between certain regions. But I do agree with Tim the Enchanter’s assertion that we should not use a system in which regional winners could possibly be seeded lower than the regional runners-up based solely on stats. From what I can tell, there are four possible head-to-head records for regional winners to have against regional runners-up, assuming neither team leaves early: 1-0, 1-1, 2-0, or 2-1. In three of these situations, the winner had a better head-to-head record, which in my opinion should be rewarded moreso than stats. In the one other situation, neither team has a head-to-head advantage, but I wouldn’t have a problem with the winner still being given an advantage in States seeding due to the fact that they didn’t lose to another team. Perhaps a hybrid system could be used in which the teams are first ranked 1-12 based solely on stats but then rearranged as necessary to ensure a regional winner is not ranked behind the corresponding regional runner-up? NAQT does something similar to this when determining bids to the ICT (i.e. college national championship). The bids are determined based on the order of the D-values, which are then corrected to ensure the order-of-finish is not broken. I imagine it would be easy enough to do something similar for seeding teams at OAC States. (EDIT: I see that Joe and Tim discussed this issue in more detail while I was typing my response)

I do not like the idea of a penalty for leaving early, for the reasons noted by Joe and Tom.

So, I voted for option #3, although with the caveat noted above for regional winners being favored.

Other miscellaneous thoughts:

The “regional protection” noted by Peter would be nice if it could somehow be integrated into the system without throwing the seeding off too much, but I could see that being a little complicated. I admit, though, that I haven’t thought about the implications too much.

I like the snake seeding, as opposed to having all the odd seeds in one bracket and all the even seeds in another bracket, although perhaps there is a valid argument for why the latter option would be better/more fair.

I have been thinking all night about the issue of Regional protection that Peter brought up and came to this conclusion on my opinion: On first blush, I liked the idea of Regional protection; however, after thinking about it, I decided that I am not in favor of such a structure. The best way I can explain my reasoning on this is by using an example, so for a minute, go back to the Sam Blizzard Northmont years. During those years, there was very little question who was going to win the West Central Regional or even State - it was pretty much certainly going to be Northmont. I was coaching Sidney at the time, so Regional protection was actually greatly benefiting us because we were guaranteed to avoid Northmont at State in the initial bracketing. Why should be guaranteed that though? Just because we fall into the same region as them? At the time, we were one of the better teams but so were Copley, Fisher, Solon, etc. Why should we have been the ones to get the free pass on Northmont? I know having to play the same team from your Region seems maybe not the best at first blush but the more I thought about that situation (in which we were on the beneficial side of that setup), the more I could not convince myself it was a good thing.

I voted, and ended up selecting not factoring final round questions into seeding, not adding a statistical penalty for leaving early, and not giving regional champions an advantage in seeding, but would like to add that my vote regarding "no advantage for regional champions" meant that I don't think the regional champions should be automatically seeded 1-6 and the runners-up 7-12.

I do agree with Steven and Tim (and Joe) that a regional champion should always be seeded ahead of their region's runner-up, and if that were an option I would have voted for it...I just think that winning a regional should mean something a little extra other than "neat, you qualified, but still might get a worse seed than a team you beat on the buzzer."

I guess this also would mean that teams that leave early would be "penalized" very slightly (but not in the way Josh describes) only in that by leaving early they would theoretically forfeit their chance to win the regional (which I think is fair...imagine a scenario where, say, Team A squeaks by Team B in the winner's bracket, but doesn't want to risk playing them again, so they take the stats they've already banked and bounce. Not that real conflicts don't exist, people don't get sick, etc., but if you want the small seeding preference that comes with being a champion you should have to play the championship game(s).)

I originally would have said easily regional protection should remain, just because I think it'd be a little annoying to scrap through your regional, potentially play the same team three times, then get to Columbus and lo and behold the stats have conspired to put you two together in the same bracket again. But Joe makes a convincing point that where you happen to play your regional shouldn't insulate you from playing the top seed, even if you wish it did.

This may not be the right place to bring it up, and I'm sure the conversation has taken place before without me being around for it, but has there been any thought to being more intentional about seeding OAC Regionals, sort of like the NCAA basketball tournament? (That is, the NCAA tournament has "regions," but the tournament is still seeded as a whole field, and in the old days when cross-country travel was still an issue this was also taken into account for where to send the basketball teams). If one traditional OAC region is, statistically speaking, loaded, and another isn't, would the committee consider, say, sending a traditionally "North Coast" team to Northeast (regional sites ~1 hr apart), or a traditionally "West Central" team to Southwest (regional sites also ~1 hr apart)? We may not quite be there yet, but as the parity in the game gets better and better it's something to consider. Regarding travel, we already ask some Southeast teams to drive to Lancaster for their regional, and Lakewood (Cuyahoga) had put in three hours of travel to play (I know that they were at-large), so we're already asking teams to drive kind of far in some scenarios.

3. Final round stats should not be included because of uneven competition and more importantly, you don't want to create a situation where teams are "running up the score" on lesser teams with seeding in mind. I think there are numerous occasions on the regional level where teams can/do give lesser experienced players a chance to play in the final round to gain experience and not run up the score. I would hate to see that kind of sportsmanship disappear because points are needed for seeding.

Just wanted to pop by on this really quickly and say, hey, this is a good point. I have long thought that alphabet round points could serve as a good tiebreaker between bracket finishes at various OAC invitationals because, unlike total PPG (points per game), the only team you are playing against is yourself and a four minute clock to answer twenty questions. In tossup/bonus format (essentially anything that doesn't have the abbreviation "OAC" in it, although some exceptions may apply.) PPB is used as a primary tiebreaker/afternoon placement criteria, and I like it for that fact: it doesn't matter so much what your buzzer does in runaway games, but instead what you do shooting uncontested three-pointers /metaphor.

trbenedict wrote:

I do agree with Steven and Tim (and Joe) that a regional champion should always be seeded ahead of their region's runner-up, and if that were an option I would have voted for it...I just think that winning a regional should mean something a little extra other than "neat, you qualified, but still might get a worse seed than a team you beat on the buzzer."

For what its worth, I agree that the winner of a given regional should always be ahead of the runner-up of the same regional. I was under the impression that the regional winner priority meant that the 1's (regional winners) would be automatically seeded 1-6, and the 2's (regional runner-ups) would be automatically seeded 7-12. That is what I wasn't on board with. Instead, I'm down with something where the #1 is WC1; #2 is SE1; #3 is WC2; #4 is NE1; #5 is SE2, as an example, if that's how the statistics play out.

Regarding regional protection: look, I appreciate Joe's comments here. But I think playing the #1 seed in your region (or, more aptly, the team that is better than you) is enough justification to not have to play them at states in the morning round. Say that you are Sidney: you're in the West Central region, you're arguably one of the best teams on the state on the bases of quantitative data (stats; PPB) and anecdotal evidence (reader observations; water cooler talk at the various tournaments.) The #1 seed (Beavercreek) is in your region, and you take a loss to them in the winners bracket in either round 1, 2, 3, or 4. You are now one loss from being eliminated from the entire tournament, and the Beavercreek buzzsaw has helped shipped Northmont and Miami Valley your way (I don't know if this is exactly what happened, but work with me here.) If you survive the loser's bracket gauntlet that notably features Northmont and Miami Valley, then you have won the loser's bracket and get a bid to states. Since Regionals is a double-elimination tournament, that loss to Beavercreek automatically makes it single-elimination for you. If you make it to state while having the #1 seed in your region, it means you had a tougher path than others (in some way, shape or form) in reaching the state finals. It would be ridiculous, I think, to have to just barely survive Regionals and make it to states only to have the team that handed you a loss to also be the same team that stands in your way in the morning at OAC States (yes, it's double elimination - which means that one loss effectively becomes single elimination time henceforth.) So basically, to respond to Joe's point, I do think Sidney then should've been saved the pain of having to play Northmont in the morning at OAC States since they already had to deal with them at Regionals.

trbenedict wrote:

This may not be the right place to bring it up, and I'm sure the conversation has taken place before without me being around for it, but has there been any thought to being more intentional about seeding OAC Regionals, sort of like the NCAA basketball tournament? (That is, the NCAA tournament has "regions," but the tournament is still seeded as a whole field, and in the old days when cross-country travel was still an issue this was also taken into account for where to send the basketball teams). If one traditional OAC region is, statistically speaking, loaded, and another isn't, would the committee consider, say, sending a traditionally "North Coast" team to Northeast (regional sites ~1 hr apart), or a traditionally "West Central" team to Southwest (regional sites also ~1 hr apart)? We may not quite be there yet, but as the parity in the game gets better and better it's something to consider. Regarding travel, we already ask some Southeast teams to drive to Lancaster for their regional, and Lakewood (Cuyahoga) had put in three hours of travel to play (I know that they were at-large), so we're already asking teams to drive kind of far in some scenarios.

When I was in high school, as a player, I thought seeding Regionals was a great idea. Today, I see it to present some problems while at the same time not really accomplishing anything that the random draw didn't already.

One of the big arguments for keeping the random draw at regionals, I have heard, is the fact it is the most transparent way to create the schedule. Not every coach in every region will have their finger on the pulse of the greater happenings in Ohio quiz bowl, so it is probably better for the 'invisible hand' of the schedule sort itself out and let the best teams adapt and survive through to the end. I guess the other thing that can touch on this particular bent of the issue is, to a coach that is completely unfamiliar with quiz bowl and the broader Ohio quiz bowl scene, it could be pretty tough to convince them that, hey, Beavercreek is in fact better than The Little Sisters of the Poor.

Something I had always wanted to see was for teams to submit 'resumes' of their season performance to the regional directors, and in turn the regional directors would create ballots (with the resumes listed but no school name attached to any resume) for the other teams to fill out 1-15 (with 1 representing the high seed; 15 representing the low seed.) The highest seed and lowest seed would be thrown out, so as to prevent outliers, and the sum of the schools are then divided by 13 to create an average. The average that is closest to zero is the #1 seed of the region, the average who is the second closest to zero is the #2 at the regional, etc.

I think seeding a tournament 1-96 would be pretty tough. After, say, the 32nd team, is there really enough data with some of these teams to separate #48 from #51? Maybe instead of seeing the entire field top to bottom, the Committee could name 12-24 teams to be seeded, to be equally divided across the regions. The only problem here with this idea is that there is too great of coincidence (literal, not figurative) between the best teams in the state of Ohio and their coaches' relation to the OAC Committee that someone accusing "conflict of interest" or "good ole' boys club" will be inevitable if this were to be done.

You are likely correct as long as the lightning round is not included, but I still don't think it should be possible for a team to be seeded behind a team they beat in Regionals. Maybe an adjustment can be made for that scenario.

I love this as well. Great idea! This also gives teams the incentive to play all matches at regionals.

Get Lynned wrote:

PPB is used as a primary tiebreaker/afternoon placement criteria, and I like it for that fact: it doesn't matter so much what your buzzer does in runaway games, but instead what you do shooting uncontested three-pointers /metaphor.

This is exactly why I used alphabet and team category questions originally.

There is one item I need some more feedback/ideas. What do we do if their is a statistical tie?

I re-did the poll and added Tim's suggestion. So please re-vote! I also removed the penalty option.

We have a rather unique setup when it comes to regionals --> states and qualifying and such, but does any other state that uses regional-type play use a seeding format for their state tournament (IL, VA, ??)

With regards to seeding for state:1. I have no problem eliminating the random draw2. When seeding though, you must have the regional champ be seeded higher than the runner-up in their region. That should be an automatic given, otherwise why play rounds 7 or 8? 3. I do think that there should be some attempt to provide regional protection in order to: a. Guarantee that teams get to play teams from all regions of the state (beside their own) b. It also makes it easier if the two truly best teams in the state happen to be in the same region, to play in the state finals4. Using Team Questions (No steals or tossups) and Alphabet rounds only for seeding purposes would be best to account for differences in quality of play and to reduce running up the scores on opponents.

But also keep in mind, that if we do start to use regional per match stats to seed for states, that it will allow for ZERO error for regional tournament directors when it comes to keeping track of the paperwork. I know that tournament directors should always be adept and good with keeping up with paperwork, but it is a very hectic day, and mistakes can be made. One mistake by one tournament director anywhere in the state would derail the whole seeding system.

Plus, what do we do about protests for all of the regional tournament matches? Right now, we only entertain protests if it could result in a change to the outcome of a specific match. Theoretically, a contentious issue for every match (in the team and alphabet rounds), could be something that would have to have a protest entertained every single time because we don't who will go to state in advance. This could theoretically slow down the regional tournaments even further.

Could another possible alternative to having a detailed stat-driven seeding system be:Once the 12 teams that have qualified for state have been determined, have an on-line vote in advance among the 12 coaches (plus perhaps OAC ExCom members) to seed those teams, with the caveat that no regional-runner up can be seeded higher than the champion in their region? It would alleviate any mistakes made by stats from regionals, and the voting coaches (and possibly OAC ExCom members) voting would have a pretty good idea of who is good and not-so-good state wide. Seems a lot less cumbersome than driving everything by just data. As a compromise for those that do want a lot of data as part of the process, we could vote to require Josh's data be tabulated and forwarded on to all voting state seeding members to help with the voting process.

As for regional seeding:1. It has been my experience (at least in the SW region) that a lot (if not most of the coaches) do not keep very close tabs on who is good and not-so-good in the region to make a very good informed decision on seeding. In the SW, we play OAC almost exclusively in our conferences, so we don't use NAQT data. Those that would be voting to seed, would more likely vote based on a program's past success (maybe many years ago) or on a school's academic reputation in general (not the actual quiz bowl team itself).2. I really am opposed to having a state-wide draw for the 96 regional spots, it would be extremely prohibitive for teams to travel all across the state for matches. We don't do it for high school athletics in Ohio, so why do it for quiz bowl?

We have a rather unique setup when it comes to regionals --> states and qualifying and such, but does any other state that uses regional-type play use a seeding format for their state tournament (IL, VA, ??)

I tried to chase down an answer for this. Here's what QBWiki had to say, first for Illinois (info still is accurate as far as I could verify):

QBWiki wrote:

The IHSA State Series uses a Regional-Sectional-State format, and in two classes (AA for large schools, A for smaller schools). Schools are assigned, geographically to one of eight sectionals in their class (usually in January). The coaches then meet (usually in mid-February) and seed the top 8 teams in the sectional. Afterwards, the IHSA will place each team in the sectional into one of four regional tournaments, with an effort made to separate the top 8 seeds (1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5), and arranging so that seeds only meet in the Regional finals. Other teams are placed in the single-elimination bracket at random. The Regional tournament is usually held after school on a Monday in early March.The four regional winners meet at the sectional tournament the next Saturday. The sectional is a four-team round robin. If there is a tie between two teams, it is broken based on head-to-head results, with a three-way tie broken based on the total scores of the teams scored against the other tied teams.The State Championship Tournament is held on the next Friday at the Peoria Civic Center (since 1997). The winners of the 8 sectionals in each class are randomly assigned to one of two pools of four teams. Each team plays the three other teams in their pool, with the winners of the two pools meeting for the state championship, and the runner-up in each of the pools playing a third place match. Ties in each pool are broken according to the same rulesin the sectional.

VHSL in Virginia is very weird to try to untangle, and they just went through realignment again this year to take effect in 2018 (after a previous 2014 realignment). The state is essentially split into six regions, with each region containing four sub-regions. They have six different classifications based on school size, with Class 6 being the biggest and Class 1 being the smallest. Magnet schools used to have to play in Class 6 regardless of enrollment, but now they play in the classification dictated by their size. I have no idea what they do with private schools. Top two from each sub-region go on to Regionals, then the top two from each Regional go to State. State looks like it's a full round-robin in each classification, meaning seeding isn't necessary since everyone plays everyone else.

Plus, what do we do about protests for all of the regional tournament matches? Right now, we only entertain protests if it could result in a change to the outcome of a specific match. Theoretically, a contentious issue for every match (in the team and alphabet rounds), could be something that would have to have a protest entertained every single time because we don't who will go to state in advance. This could theoretically slow down the regional tournaments even further.

No, definitely no protests unless they affect the outcome of the match. Just the same as PPB are used as a tiebreaker in any tossup/bonus tournament and protests are only heard if they affect the final outcome of a match.

rmaupin wrote:

b. It also makes it easier if the two truly best teams in the state happen to be in the same region, to play in the state finals

I actually think regional protection makes it less likely the two best teams in the state make it to the state final. If they two best teams are in the same region, they will be the number one and two seeds in this setup anyway. If we give the second team out of a region a containing the best team a free pass into the other bracket, it unfairly disadvantages the other teams, making them more likely to have to play the top seed.

A side note: Regional protection in a setup such as this is very, very messy proposition that would really fudge all of the seeding and in some cases making the decisions not quantitative (which we definitely don't want because then people can have legitimate complaints).

Could another possible alternative to having a detailed stat-driven seeding system be:Once the 12 teams that have qualified for state have been determined, have an on-line vote in advance among the 12 coaches (plus perhaps OAC ExCom members) to seed those teams, with the caveat that no regional-runner up can be seeded higher than the champion in their region? It would alleviate any mistakes made by stats from regionals, and the voting coaches (and possibly OAC ExCom members) voting would have a pretty good idea of who is good and not-so-good state wide. Seems a lot less cumbersome than driving everything by just data. As a compromise for those that do want a lot of data as part of the process, we could vote to require Josh's data be tabulated and forwarded on to all voting state seeding members to help with the voting process.

I don't want to say this would never work because in theory it should but I do see two major problems with it:

1) Some people are just uninformed and don't care enough to actually put enough thought into a ballot. Yes, even people who have a team qualified for State, etc. can some time fall into that category imo at least.

2) A lot of people can factor in their own agendas when voting. Ex. I don't want to play Team X so I am going to rank them here because that makes it more likely.

I don't have a vote but I could never get behind something that is not purely quantitative because it leads to too many possible problems. (I would like to in theory but I also don't want to be sued like we almost were long ago...)

You could avoid the "group of death" and keep Regional integrity by only seeding the regional winners and putting the 2nd place teams opposite the winners in the state bracket.

That doesn't necessarily happen though. A couple years ago for instance when Northmont/Sidney finished 1/2 and were widely viewed as the best two teams in the state at that point (of those teams competing). The #2 and #3 regional winners along with Sidney are automatically in the same bracket, creating what amounts to a bracket of death of sorts, just sans the #1 overall team.

Edit: The disparity of performance among the top two seed and the third or fourth two seed is much more than the disparity usually between the top one seed and the the third or fourth one seed, which leads to any regional protection leading to unbalanced brackets.

This is inevitably going to come up at some point: What do we do about situations like Sidney this year?

Just to preemptively give my response - There is nothing we can do. There is no way to objectively gauge what losing a player means to the team. Thinking back to when Brandon and Michael played together at Northmont. Michael put up very average numbers when playing with Brandon who was the dominant scorer on the team, but anytime they played without Brandon, Michael would be one of the top scorers of any tournament. Now, yes, by and large the community knew this would hold true but there was no objective way to gauge the impact of losing a player. We have to come to terms with the fact that there are some things we just cannot account for and have to let them play out even if it makes things slightly off kilter every now and then. It is not something that happens every year by any means. To take it back to sports, just because Tom Brady breaks his leg in Week 15 of the season after the Patriots have already clinched home field advantage and the number one seed, does not mean the NFL is going to strip them of that advantage - sometimes everything just does not play out perfectly and that is okay.

Alphabet +(Team Questions Pts.*2)Regional winners NOT favored in seeding, but are guaranteed a higher seed than their regional runner-up

also means that teams leaving early aren't assessed a (direct) penalty? I'm assuming this is the case, and that the teams that do leave early are only 'penalized' by being seeded behind the regional champion, right (as opposed to having their divisor be seven if they only played six games?)

Of course, if you're talking about having a committee voting to seed (like NCAA Basketball) injuries (absences) of players are taken into account (ex. Kenyon Martin's broken leg affecting UC's seed in 2001)

Of course, if you're talking about having a committee voting to seed (like NCAA Basketball) injuries (absences) of players are taken into account (ex. Kenyon Martin's broken leg affecting UC's seed in 2001)

But we are talking about an activity where the team just chooses not to divulge the information even if they know in advance. Let us say Nour was not going to be there but then no one is told and he magically gets "sick" the day before State. Seeding is already done and we end up with the same scenario. We just cannot seek to fix every minor thing.

Could another possible alternative to having a detailed stat-driven seeding system be:Once the 12 teams that have qualified for state have been determined, have an on-line vote in advance among the 12 coaches (plus perhaps OAC ExCom members) to seed those teams, with the caveat that no regional-runner up can be seeded higher than the champion in their region? It would alleviate any mistakes made by stats from regionals, and the voting coaches (and possibly OAC ExCom members) voting would have a pretty good idea of who is good and not-so-good state wide. Seems a lot less cumbersome than driving everything by just data. As a compromise for those that do want a lot of data as part of the process, we could vote to require Josh's data be tabulated and forwarded on to all voting state seeding members to help with the voting process.

I don't want to say this would never work because in theory it should but I do see two major problems with it:

1) Some people are just uninformed and don't care enough to actually put enough thought into a ballot. Yes, even people who have a team qualified for State, etc. can some time fall into that category imo at least.

2) A lot of people can factor in their own agendas when voting. Ex. I don't want to play Team X so I am going to rank them here because that makes it more likely.

I don't have a vote but I could never get behind something that is not purely quantitative because it leads to too many possible problems. (I would like to in theory but I also don't want to be sued like we almost were long ago...)

A work-around to this could be instead of participating coaches filling out ballots, the OAC could set up a committee of voters that every year evaluates resumes + stats and fills out a ballot accordingly. The criteria for being a voter, under my idea, would be: a) no coaching or teaching affiliation to a participating school; b) at least five years removed from last attendance of a participating school; c) current seat on the OAC committee. All three of these criteria, I feel, would be enough to sufficiently prove the voters are as impartial as possible. Additionally, when the ballots are filled out: a) the highest score and the lowest score across the ballots that a school receives gets tossed out (so as to remove outliers/'gaming'); b) the ballots have to be posted publicly and in advance of the state tournament (so as to promote transparency and efficacy behind the ballot); c) every ballot has to come with an expressed, written justification of the voting taken place (so as to credit the elector's methodology.)

To transpose my suggestion into how it would've played this here, for this year, the possible voters could have been: Bob Kilner, David Jones, Ed Sunderhaus, Michael Czupryn, Alex Melton, Alex Connor, Joe Bellas, and Anita Zuber. Of the six regions... three of the six (NW, WC, and SW) have enough variance in their affiliations to where a voter can always come from that region (in the SW, this would be Ed Sunderhaus; in the WC, three different schools are represented: Tippecanoe, Northmont, and Beavercreek - if two of those schools go to state, then the coach of the school not going to state can serve as an voter; in the NW, Michael Czupryn will always be eligible since he doesn't teach at a school.) The minimum number of voters should always be three (mathematically, as is right now with the current composition of the committee, there will always be three voters eligible; when the composition of the committee changes, it this number can be toyed with - but would have to be ratified into the OAC Constitution on the basis of committee change - to match the composition of the committee and to satisfy the different possible combinations of voters in a given year.) However, every member of the Committee that is eligible to cast a vote must submit a vote, so as to get as many ballots of possible in order to maximize the degrees of freedom behind the finalized votes.

I know there is some great concern that, unless the methodology behind seeding/placement of teams is entirely objective (statistical evidence), then the door is open for accusations of impropriety to fly in and muddy up the entire deal for not just the state tournament, but the OAC. I hope my suggested model can assuage those concerns. Yes, I know even then, because there is a sliver of subjectivity, that this isn't a bullet-proof plan. My additional suggestion, to address Joe's concerns of litigation, would be to make teams sign waivers that say they will _not_ sue the OAC on the accusation of 'impropriety' and have them sign this before their registration for Regionals is finalized.

Alphabet +(Team Questions Pts.*2)Regional winners NOT favored in seeding, but are guaranteed a higher seed than their regional runner-up

also means that teams leaving early aren't assessed a (direct) penalty? I'm assuming this is the case, and that the teams that do leave early are only 'penalized' by being seeded behind the regional champion, right (as opposed to having their divisor be seven if they only played six games?)

I'm just trying to make sure that there is no penalty clause here.

The penalty has been removed from all poll scenarios.

I edited the poll and then realized I forgot to remove the no penalty part. I went to edit it again and it won't let me. Sorry!

Also thanks to everyone who has contributed to this conversation so far. Great insights from everyone. I encourage others to add to it and voice your opinion.

I guess another way of looking at the absences issue is that the team has earned that higher, more advantageous seeding through their performance at Regionals. Whether or not their best player(s) is there, they've earned it and should be able to use that advantage regardless of absences.

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